Chapter 35

FREYA 

Dinner was quiet at first. Not the awkward kind of quiet—more like a calm after a long day kind. The dining room was bathed in the warm, golden glow of the pendant lights overhead, casting soft shadows across the white plates and glasses of water. Brandon had cooked again—or rather, reheated leftovers from earlier in the week, but the effort still counted.

I appreciated the normalcy. The way he sat across from me in his dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up, the top two buttons undone, a little wrinkle in his brow like he hadn’t quite clocked out of the office yet. I recognized that look. He was thinking—probably about work, or something I’d said in passing that he hadn’t let go of.

"You're barely touching your food," he finally said, setting down his fork and narrowing his eyes on me.

I paused, blinking back into the moment. “I’m eating. Just… slowly.”

He leaned forward, elbows on the table, his voice quieter. “Is it the nausea again? I can get you something else.”

I smiled at how quick he was to react, how gently concern showed in every line of his face. “Brandon, I’m fine. I promise. The baby and I are both okay.”

He didn’t look convinced.

“I’m not going to break,” I added, reaching across the table to rest my fingers over his hand. “Stop worrying so much.”

His lips pressed into a line, but he nodded and gave my fingers a soft squeeze. “It’s not worry,” he muttered. “It’s… I just want to make sure I’m doing this right.”

“You are,” I said firmly. “Better than right, actually.”

He let out a soft exhale and returned to his plate, and for a few moments, we both ate in peace, the sound of cutlery filling the room. Then, as the silence stretched on, I found myself thinking back—uninvited memories creeping in like shadows under the door.

Brandon had just asked something about a board member’s reluctance on a new initiative, but I didn’t catch the full sentence. My thoughts were suddenly, sharply elsewhere.

“Freya?” he prompted when I didn’t respond right away.

I looked up. “Sorry. I just remembered something.”

His brow lifted slightly. “Everything okay?”

I set my fork down and sat back in my chair. “It’s something Brgan said to me. Back when I was still figuring everything out... before we were, you know, us.”

Brandon stilled. His shoulders straightened the slightest bit, not out of anger, but alertness. “Go on.”

I hadn’t spoken about this part of it before—not in detail. And maybe that was a mistake. Maybe we were overdue for this conversation.

“He told me a lot of things about you. About your family. About how you treat your older brother, Bryan's father, Alexander because he is illegitimate.” I drew a breath. “He painted a picture of you that, now that I’m sitting across from you like this, just doesn’t match at all.”

Brandon didn’t speak. He just watched me, giving me the space to talk, even if the words burned a little on the way out.

“He said you were ruthless. Manipulative. That everything you did was calculated, and anyone who got close to you was just a pawn. He said you took after your mother—cold, ambitious, dangerous if crossed.”

A flicker of something passed through his eyes. Not hurt exactly—more like recognition. Like he’d heard it before.

“He also said you were only planning on marrying anyone to spite your family. To prove something to the board. He told some son story about the hardship Alexander had to go through to be given a seat at the table because of you.”

Brandon’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t interrupt. I wasn’t sure if that made it easier or harder to keep going.

“He even told me your father never trusted you, that you were the product of bitterness and legacy games, and that I should stay out of it before I got swallowed whole.”

I paused then, because this next part mattered the most.

“And for a while,” I admitted, my voice soft, “I believed him. Or at least, I let those words fester in the back of my mind. I questioned you. I doubted your motives. And I thought maybe… maybe he was right about you.”

Brandon finally spoke, his voice low but steady. “You didn’t know me yet.”

“No, I didn’t. But I should’ve given you a chance to show me who you really were, instead of assuming the worst.”

He tilted his head slightly. “He’s persuasive.”

“He’s manipulative,” I corrected. “Everything he accused you of being… was really him. All those qualities he listed? That was Bryan projecting. And now I see that.”

Brandon’s eyes softened, and he reached for my hand again.

“I’m sorry,” I said, really meaning it. “For ever believing that version of you. For not trusting my own judgment. For letting him poison my view of you before you even had a chance.”

He shook his head gently. “You were being protective of yourself. I don’t blame you for that, my father had Alex a long time ago, even before he married my mom, it was a one night stand and the woman died during childbirth, dad took him in, he never treated him poorly, no one did, he just saw me as a competition because my father married my mother. Alex was already 21 years old when I was born, it shows how young my father was when he had him. So it's okay to have been suspicious. And... maybe I earned some of that suspicion. I wasn’t exactly open in the beginning either.”

“You were guarded,” I said. “But not cold. Never cruel. I see that now. You were just… trying to survive in a world full of wolves.”

Brandon’s mouth curved slightly. “And somehow, I married the one woman who could outwit the entire pack.”

I smiled, but there was a lump in my throat. “It’s not just about me anymore. There’s a baby now. And I don’t want them growing up around lies or bitterness. I want them to know their father for who he really is, not some twisted version Bryan tried to feed me.”

His fingers threaded through mine across the table. “Our child is going to grow up in truth,” he said softly. “With two parents who would love our kid and protect each other. And who fight for what’s right—even when it’s messy.”

Tears stung the corners of my eyes, but I blinked them back. “I want that more than anything.”

“Then we’ll build it,” he said. “From the ground up, if we have to.”

I nodded, and we sat there for a moment, hands intertwined, breathing in that promise.

“You’re not angry?” I asked after a beat. “That I believed him? That I didn’t say anything until now?”

“I’m not angry,” he said. “I’m glad you told me. And I’m even more glad you see now.”

I smiled through the tightness in my chest. “I do.”

There was another beat of quiet between us—he was still watching me, not with judgment, but with something far deeper. Understanding. And maybe, if I was reading it right… forgiveness.

And then, to lighten the air, he added, “Though I’ll admit, I’m a little offended that you thought I was that smooth of a villain. I’m not that good at hiding my emotions.”

I let out a laugh, wiping at the corner of my eye. “True. You do sulk dramatically when you're upset.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Dramatically?”

“Like a sad CEO who lost his favorite stock.”

He chuckled, that rare full-bodied laugh that made me fall for him all over again. “I’ll remember that next time I’m brooding.”

We finished our dinner with the heaviness between us finally aired out. And when we got up to clear the plates, something between us felt lighter. Not just because of what was said—but because we chose honesty. We chose each other, again and again.

And as I moved to rinse our plates in the sink, I felt his arms slide around my waist from behind.

“I’m glad you told me,” he whispered, pressing a soft kiss to my temple. “Whatever comes next, we face it together.”

I turned in his arms, resting my forehead against his. “Together.”

In that quiet kitchen, filled with the lingering smell of dinner and the warmth of shared truth, I knew—no matter how tangled our pasts had been, the future we were building was real.

And this time, no one was going to take that from us.